Ukrainian Biological Data Science Summer School 2026
From 11-25 July 2026, we ran the Ukrainian Biological Data Science Summer School (UBDS) in Uzhhorod on the Western border of Ukraine with Hungary and Slovakia. Now taking place for the fourth time (links to posts on first, second and third editions), it has come a long way. The idea started in November 2022 as an improvised effort to respond to the brutal russian invasion and martial law that prevented (and still prevents) young people from travelling abroad. By having a science-focused event that brings together Ukrainian students, academics who grew up in Ukraine and now work in the West, and senior researchers from Western countries, we hoped to create links that provide positive perspectives.
There were challenges. What are lecture and practical lab topics that are actually interesting, meaningful and feasible for the students? And how to intersect these with topics that the lecturers/researchers we flew in would be able to cover? How to reduce the level of stress? Even if you did not just spend a day and a night in a train to travel across a country under war, and even if your home town is not constantly bombed by russians, finding yourself in a dorm and in lecture classes with 60 other people, being expected to talk about advanced statistics or biotech concepts not in your native language, can induce anxiety.
Now, in its fourth year, the summer school has become one of the highlights of bioinformatics education in the Ukraine. The students were ambitious, highly motivated and bright. A number of participants from previous years came back, some as TAs, some to exchange scientific project ideas and skills and to network. One sign of the school’s recognition was a senior researcher from YURiA Pharm, a pharma company in Kyiv, make the 12h trip to Uzhhorod to present their research and scout talent. Lecturers from research institutions around the world are happy to come and teach, and come back again next year. It is not just a school with a uni-directional flow of information. We all learned from each other, and the atmosphere was a mix of scientific workshop, hackathon, institute retreat and lecture course. We hoped to convey these messages:
- Doing science is fun
- Science is a rewarding profession
- There is hope
Many thanks to our fantastic local hosts at Uzhhorod National University, including Y. Haiovych, T. Lisovska, O. Kurutsa and S. Vronskiy at the Information Technologies Centre.
Слава Україні!
Some photo impressions:
